Progression
by JJWalker
Summary: After sitting on the sidelines, accomplishing nothing, Paul arranges a battle with his greatest rival, to write another chapter in their history. And to prove that he is still the trainer that he always thought he was. Slight Pokeshipping. One sided IkariShipping


**Progression**

* * *

**Chapter One - A Reunion of Friends and Foes.**

* * *

"He's late."

Lake Acuity has always been described as the most beautiful place in the Sinnoh region. Located near to Snowpoint City, the lake had become quite the tourist attraction, due to its picturesque scenery and the peaceful tone that it conveyed.

Today would not be the case.

Today the ever popular tourist attraction will now be the host of a Pokémon battle. It had played host to thousands of battles in its existence and the battle that was about to commence may have the potential to be the most destructive and the most emotionally charged battles that has ever taken place at Lake Acuity.

"WHY IS HE SO LATE?"

If only one of the combatants was actually at the lake that is.

Pacing impatiently back and forth in the vicinity between the hills and the lake itself was Paul Hayden. As usual, Paul wearing the same clothes that he had been wearing throughout his first journey throughout Sinnoh. As usual, Paul was sporting the largest scowl that the world has ever seen on his face.

"He's not late. Calm down would you Paul?"

Sitting on a bench nearby to Paul, was his older, more down to earth brother, Reggie. Just like Paul, Reggie was wearing the same clothes he had always wore, the exception being his trademark apron, which was currently at the house the brothers had shared in Veilstone City. Reggie had never shown any frustration towards his brother, but today…today was the exception.

"Yes he is," Paul said, his anger rising with each word. "We agreed to a time and place. This is the place and the time is now. But he is not here."

Technically speaking, Paul was right. Lake Acuity was the place that both himself and his opponent had agreed to, down to the fact that the place held memories of the first full battle the duo had years before. The date and time had been set and all the stars were aligned and such, but his opponent had yet to arrive.

"Paul," Reggie said, doing his best to avoid violently shaking his brother down like a Poke doll, "Don't you think you are taking it a bit too far."

Still pacing back and forth, Paul replied, "Reggie, tell me what time did we agree to?"

"Paul, seri-"

"What time, Reggie?"

"…"

"Reggie?"

"11:30"

"And what time is it now?"

"11:33"

"He's late."

Reggie could see the impatience growing in his brother and that led to him becoming slightly conflicted. On one hand, he wanted to slap Paul until he would shut up, but he knew first-hand how important this day and this battle was to Paul so he figured he could let it slide…as he always did when it came to Paul.

Reggie had watched for the past two months as Paul trained, arguably the hardest he has ever trained since starting his journey, knowing that this battle will have a long term effect on Paul, no matter what the outcome would be. So it was only natural for Paul to be a little bit anxious

"You're nervous aren't you?" Reggie said, a smile beginning to creep upon his face.

Paul stopped pacing back and forth and turned to face his brother, "What makes you say that?"

"Well, the last time we were here, you were a lot more calm and patient. Today you look like you are one drink away from wetting your Turtwig boxers."

"I'm washing my own clothes from now on." Paul replied, earning a laugh out of his brother, followed by a short silence. "But yeah, I'm not as collected as I was last time."

Paul was underplaying how nervous he really was. This battle had been on his mind for almost two and a half years and it would have taken place sooner, but Paul thought he wasn't ready. And then other events had delayed Paul from setting up this battle sooner.

And it was all because of one person.

Paul's greatest rival and occasional friend,

Ash Ketchum.

"I understand Paul. I would be if it was me in this situation. It's not often that you get to battle the champion of the Sinnoh Region."

At the mention of Ash's accomplishment, Paul tensed up and shivered. It was totally out of character for him and it caught both him off and Reggie off guard.

"Are you okay?" Reggie asked.

Almost immediately, Paul replied, "I'm fine."

He wasn't fine. He was far from it. He was jealous. He was jealous of the fact that his rival has accomplished the goal that they had shared, before he had the chance to. He was in the arena and watched as Ash defeated Cynthia and became champion, two years ago. Ever since then, Paul had been silently resenting him because of it. Even though Paul and Ash were on good terms, the fact that Ash was a champion and he wasn't made him sick. Even a simple reminder or the mere mention of it would be enough to raise anger from inside of Paul.

"You don't look okay. Are you ill?" Reggie asked.

"I swear to you I'm fine." Paul said, the tone of his voice indicating that his brother shouldn't ask any more questions.

Reggie of course, picked up on Paul's tone of voice but instead of staying quiet, Reggie decided to make another attempt to get some more information out of his brother.

"Is it about Ash?"

Paul sighed, "Reggie."

"I only ask because I care about you. You're my brother as well as the only living family member of mine and I want to make sure that you are okay. And if you are going through some sort of distress, I want to help you get through it. Now tell me… what's wrong?"

Paul's first reaction was to lie to Reggie again, in hopes of him backing off and not asking that question again. His second reaction was to ask for the time again, in hopes of changing the subject. But there was truth to what Reggie was saying. He was his only family member and he always had his best interest at heart. And he had been feeling this way for two years and it would feel good to get it off his chest.

"The truth is, I-"

They were cut off by hearing a loud roar, followed by a stream of fire shooting across the sky.

_He's here._

* * *

A large orange dragon was approaching the two brothers from out of the sky. The initial feeling for both brothers was one of terror, but that soon died down when they remembered exactly who owned a Charizard as well as the fact that they were expecting a guest to arrive.

As the Charizard got closer and closer to the ground, both Paul and Reggie could see the silhouette of a person riding on it, waving intently at the two brothers.

"Paul! Reggie!" The person had yelled, in an oh-so-familiar voice to the two brothers.

And at that moment, all speculation to who was on the Charizard was gone.

Reggie began to wave, "Hello Ash!"

Paul opted to remain silent.

Eventually the Charizard landed about 50 yards away from Paul and Reggie and they watched silently as Ash Ketchum jumped off of it with a tad of excitement. He looked over to the two brothers and smiled.

"Just like old times eh? I even wore my Sinnoh clothes to suit the occa-"

Unfortunately, Ash was cut off when Charizard suddenly used Flamethrower, covering Ash in a blanket of fire.

"Ash, are you okay?" Reggie voiced his concern. He had never seen any Fire type Pokémon, cover a human with fire.

Ash began to wipe soot of his clothes. "I'm fine Reggie, after years of repeated Flamethrower's you get used to it." Ash then turned towards Charizard, "Someone is just upset that he won't be battling today."

Paul and Reggie gave each other a look, symbolising confusion. Reggie said what they were both thinking, "Why not? He is probably you're strongest Pokémon."

"Well," Ash sighed and then rubbed the back of his head. "We had a training session with Flint and Charizard took a beating from his Infernape's ThunderPunch, leading to that mark on his stomach."

Reggie and Paul looked towards the underbelly of Ash's Pokémon. Sure enough, there was a brown mark on Charizard's cream underbelly.

"You do have six Pokémon don't you?" Paul finally spoke up, addressing his rival.

Ash was about to answer for himself, but before he had the chance to do so…

"He'll have six Pokémon by the time the battle starts, don't worry." A feminine voice spoke up from behind Charizard.

All three of the young men looked towards the flame Pokémon. Now visible to the three of them was a ginger haired girl, wearing a yellow hood and blue shorts.

Ash smiled. "You know, I can speak for myself you know?" he said playfully, before turning his attention back to Reggie and Paul. "You guys remember my girlfriend, Misty."

Reggie smiled and waved. Paul instead said.

"Can we battle now?"

"I'd love to Paul," Ash replied "but we are waiting on one more person. She should be here soon."

"How long is 'soon'?" Paul replied.

"About another hour or so," Misty stated. "That isn't going to be a problem is it."

Paul had to stop himself from cursing.

* * *

"And then I said, 'hold on Greg let me unstrap you from your car seat.'"

Ash, Misty and Reggie had spent the next thirty minutes catching up and sharing various stories from events that had happened since the last time they had seen each other. Paul was impatiently waiting, speaking once in a while and making a comment that would usually be followed by a lengthy silence.

"So Ash," Reggie said, after the laughter of the previous joke died down. "When is your next title defence?"

"Four days. I'm facing some guy that won the Lily of the Valley Conference three years ago. He defeated Lucian about six weeks ago." Ash stated, not really caring.

"Is he good?"

Ash put both his hands and leaned back. "Well he must be decent to go through the Elite Four, but in all seriousness, I don't think he is anything special. The way he battles is nothing I haven't seen before. Just another guy with a string of luck and a bit of momentum."

"What kind of Pokémon does he use?"

"He's an all-rounder but he does seem to favour Water Pokémon. But that's why I have Misty here." Ash said, putting his hand on Misty's knee, causing her to smile. "I really don't expect to lose this one."

And that was when Charizard, who had been sleeping behind the four people, decided to make his presence known by growling loudly followed by using Flamethrower on an unsuspecting Ash.

Misty sighed, "Charizard is really upset about not battling Ash. Can't you just let him battle?"

Ash didn't answer; he simply got up and walked to his powerhouse Pokémon. Once he got there he rubbed Charizard's belly, right on the bruise. Charizard yelled in pain and covered Ash in flames as a result.

"Do you… understand now?" Ash said weakly.

"I… I guess you do make a point."

"I only have the best interest of my Pokémon at heart. I'd do the same thing to Pikachu if it was him."

That's when Paul noticed that Ash was missing something that he was usually never without. "Where is Pikachu? He's always with you."

"He is… under supervision right now. You'll see him soon enough." Ash said, rather cryptically.

"What was that supposed to mean?" Reggie asked.

Ash looked into Reggie's eyes. "Oh nothing, it doesn't matter though. You'll see eventually."

"Quit being so dramatic," Misty said, punching Ash in the head. "Pikachu is with Dawn, Reggie. You'll see him when Dawn comes later, with the other Pokémon Ash will be using today."

Misty then punched Ash in the head.

"Ow, I was only trying to build suspense Mist."

Paul stood up angrily and grunted, before beginning to walk to the small pond adjacent to the battlefield.

"What's your problem?" Ash asked.

"My problem, I've been here waiting for you to battle, you show up late. And expect me to wait while your blue-haired friend arrives here, with the rest of your team that you should have bought with you to begin with. How disrespectful do you want to be?"

Ash stood up, "How about you try being impatient Paul. You've sat there looking sorry for yourself for half an hour. News flash: sulking isn't going to get this battle done any quicker. And let's face the facts; Dawn is your friend too, so get over yourself."

Ash would have stopped at that point, but he had something else he needed to say to Paul.

"I don't see why you are so mad about the battle getting delayed, it's not like you were going to win anyway?"

Paul turned to face Ash; the anger was evident in his face.

"What did you say?"

"You heard me Paul. I've been a champion for two years now. There is no way I'm losing to you."

"Confident talk, you must have forgotten that it took you five attempts to actually beat me in battle."

"That was a long time ago, Paul. I'll admit, you were better than me before, but now you are not on my level."

Paul picked up a Pokeball, "Care to prove that then, champ. If you believe what you just said, you battle me now. Whadyasay?"

Before Ash could reply, a high pitched sound had commanded the attention of everyone at the Lake.

"PIKA PI!"

Ash took his eyes off of his rival and the stern look on his face turned to one of pure glee as he saw a small yellow blur racing towards him from approximately one hundred meters away.

Misty smiled also and she, alongside her boyfriend ran to meet up with the main reason why that had been waiting so long to get the battle underway.

Reggie smiled, happy in seeing a trainer react so positively to his Pokémon.

Paul frowned harder and crossed his arms.

* * *

"Pikachu, how are you buddy? You missed me?" Ash said, cuddling his starter Pokémon and best friend.

"Pika Pi, Pikachu. Pika Pika." Pikachu happily responded, nuzzling the cheek of his trainer.

"Well I hope you had a good time at Dawn's. We have a big battle today. You ready?"

"Pi Pikachu!" Pikachu happily exclaimed, whilst clenching his fist. His face was full of excitement and determination but all of that disappeared when he had noticed the person standing beside his trainer.

"Pikachu Pi!" Pikachu's expression was more of surprise rather than joy at the site of Misty. Nevertheless, he was still happy to see her and he had wiggled out of Ash's grip and hopped onto her shoulder.

"You missed me too?"

"Pika!" The electric type exclaimed.

"You're a Pika pal, Pikachu."

"Pikachu!"

Just as the trio were about to turn around and walk back, another figure caught Ash's eye forcing him to stop in his tracks. Nothing was notable about this figure, apart from the fact that it had blue hair.

Ash laughed, "Pikachu, go with Misty and head back over to where Reggie is. Charizard is over there as well."

"PIKA." At the sound of his comrade and friend, Pikachu jumped off of Misty's shoulder and began to run once again, in the direction of Charizard. Misty followed him, which left Ash to deal with the blue haired girl that was, slowly approaching him.

Dawn had eventually caught up to Ash, panting heavily. Her hair was all over the place and if she was wearing any makeup, it would have been removed by the amount of sweat that was dripping off of her forehead. She was bent over with her hand on her knees. Her partner Pokémon, Piplup was beside her. He was just as exhausted.

"Trying to keep up with Pikachu, Dawn?" Ash asked, trying his hardest not to laugh at his friends misfortune.

"Bi- Bite me." Dawn responded, rather coldly. Ash laughed at this response.

"Sorry Dawn, it's just that I have had to deal with that for years. It's funny when someone else has to deal with catching up with Pikachu."

"We-well it's a l-lot faster than the last time I had seen him. Your training method must be working." Dawn then straightened up and looked at Ash eye-to-eye "I didn't keep you waiting did I?"

"It doesn't bother me that much. Out of interest, where were you?"

"I was going to stay with Zoe and Candice, but neither of them was there so I took the last train from Snowpoint to the Lake and then got lost finding the Pokémon Centre. If it wasn't for Pikachu's good sense of direction, we would have had to stay in the forest.

Eventually we found the Pokémon Centre but it was the middle of the night." Dawn continued. "I needed my beauty sleep so I overslept."

"Ok, that's fine. As I said, it hasn't bothered me one bit. Paul on the other hand… not so much."

"Paul is here already? I look like a mess."

Within the next ten seconds Dawn had managed to straighten out her hair and wipe the sweat off her head, leaving Ash in shock.

"How do I look?"

Ash was speechless.

"I'll take that as a positive comment. Thanks Ash." She went to walk away, but she remembered something important. "Here is your Pokeball back. Thanks for letting me use him in my experiment."

Ash took the Pokeball out of Dawns hand. "I hope this doesn't affect what he can do on the battlefield Dawn."

Dawn smiled. "No need to worry, Ash. He'll be fine."

"Let's hope so. We might as well go to the others. We can't keep Paul waiting anymore."

* * *

"Who do you think is going to win?" Dawn asked.

Five minutes later, after a little bit more talking and more moaning on Paul's part, it was time for the battle to finally begin. Both Ash and Paul were standing ready to get the battle underway, leaving Misty, Dawn and Reggie sitting comfortably at the lone bench adjacent to the small pond.

"I wouldn't like to say," Reggie replied. "Both of them are very strong trainers. But I have seen more of what Paul has been doing in preparation to this battle. Since winning the championship, I haven't seen any of Ash's battles."

"Ash will win, no doubt. He isn't champion for nothing." Misty responded.

Charizard grunted, seemingly uninterested in the battle.

"This is going to be fun. GO ASH! GO PAUL!" Dawn exclaimed, very excited.

"Lub. Piplup." The small water type added.

* * *

Paul's gaze was fixated on Ash. He could feel himself getting angrier and angrier, the longer he stared. He didn't know how he got to this point, because after all this delay, the battle that he had been waiting for was seconds away from beginning. But looking at Ash, he could only feel anger.

_Now isn't the time. Don't let your emotions get the better of you._

Taking a deep breath, he pulled out a Pokeball.

_This is it._

"You ready?"

At the other side of the field, Ash smiled, "Ready as I'll ever be."

"In that case," Paul threw the Pokeball into the air. "Torterra, stand by for battle."

With a loud crash, Paul's starter Pokémon, crash landed onto the ground. After yelling his name, Torterra quietly eyed Ash and Pikachu.

"A grass type huh?" Ash said, "I guess it's a no brainer."

Ash picked up his Pokeball and silently threw it into the air. After the initial 'pop' sound of the ball opening, a Pokémon that Paul was expecting to see appeared. A Pokémon that was once under Paul's ownership, but Paul had abandoned it as it failed to meet his standards. This Pokémon was the same Pokémon that ended Paul's dreams of winning the Lily of the Valley Conference, years prior.

It was Infernape, a powerhouse on Ash's team who was now staring daggers at his former owner and teammate.

Paul frowned, "I know what you are trying to do Ash. You're using Infernape first as a way to get in my head. Sorry to disappoint you but that won't happen. You're mind games won't work today."

"You sure?" Ash replied, "Because you seem to be getting angrier and angrier. Or is that because anger is your only known emotion."

"I didn't know you have jokes Ash, it seems you've finally grown out of that whole 'dimwit' personality that you had years back."

"And you know what happens when you 'grow-up' Paul, you win championships." Ash smirked, "Remind me, when was the last time you won something?"

Paul had to bite his lip before responding, "Okay then, we'll leave the smack talk to one side and we'll get to battling, shall we?"

Ash shrugged, "After you."

"You're going to regret that." Paul smirked, "Torterra, use Stone Edge."

* * *

**Okay, explanation time. Long Authors Note time.**

**My friend, ruggler354 writes fantastic battle-centred fics. A trilogy of them focused on Ash becoming and defending the Sinnoh League championship. That was the inspiration for this fic. This story takes place during that time and will be _mostly _from the perspective of Paul.**

**In terms of shippings, there won't be as much of a focus on shippings then there will be on the actual battle. But as you have just read, there will be hints towards some shippings. As you can see Pokeshipping is 'canon' in this story as ruggler made it canon in his story.**

**I am trying to keep it as 'canon' as possible based on what Ruggler has done. So there will be no references to generation 5, apart from one or two moves. And as stated, there will be references to Pokeshipping.**

**Also as a challenge I wanted to set for myself, there will only be four moves for each Pokemon. I don't see that much in battle fics so I'm giving a try.**

**I'm doing another story alongside this and that will take more of a priority over this one, but I wanted to get this posted.**

**With all of that out of the way, be sure to leave a review (and read my other stories) and I'll get back at you soon. **

**- Walker **


End file.
